The problem with inequality

This week, Oxfam reported that the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population own more than the rest of us combined. Or, put another way that “… runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much as the poorest half of the world’s population.”

In his book, How to Speak Money, John Lanchester argues that such inequality emerges from a general consensus amongst policy makers, borne out by significant progress in the real world, that permitting such inequality is the best way to reduce poverty due to the economic activity which it stimulates.

Which would be fine if inequality itself were not a considerable problem. A number of business theorists and economists have argued that to obtain sustainability, it is essential to seek growth “at the base of the pyramid”, ensuring that the most abjectly poor have a stake in the global economy. But there may be even more worrying threats emerging from inequality.

Similarly, the prejudice against South Asian migrants to the Gulf States makes it next to impossible for the prejudiced to contemplate how such migrants might contribute to society if they were given decent work instead of being part of the Kafala system which enables their enslavement with impunity.

There are solutions to such prejudices: extension of the rule of law, outlawing discrimination, and educating children for mutual understanding and respect. Such steps will require considerable moral courage by our political leaders. And given that many of the global elite are probably in thrall to such prejudices and utterly unaffected by their consequences, it is rather unlikely that too many proposals to tackle inequality and prejudice will emerge from Davos this week. We can only hope that the voices of citizens from civil society and business alike protesting the threats that inequality poses for us all, will eventually pressure the political and economic elites of the world to finally, perhaps at some future Davos, take concerted action to create a fairer world.